Eateries: They’re doing their best

On Saturday I met with the owner of a Hamilton fish and chip shop. She’d asked me for advice on how to make her products gluten-free (and then how to ensure they stay gluten-free right through to serving).

The owner, whose real name I won’t reveal to protect her privacy (I’ll call her Jane), doesn’t have food allergies but does want to be able to provide for a growing market of gluteys. She’s not doing gluten-free at the moment, but knew that if she did go down that route, she’d have to do it properly.

After talking to her for a while about how to handle food ‘the glutey way’, it got me thinking about the many times in the past when I’ve felt really peeved off with a cafe who has done gluten-free badly.

By badly I mean they’ve mis-labelled their food as gluten-free, offered limited or no gluten-free food or inadvertently contaminated the food while serving.

This lack of knowledge of glutey-prep-and-serving-guidelines is not uncommon.

One thought on “Eateries: They’re doing their best”

Excellent points. Until you have experienced the result of trace contamination you probably wouldn't believe it! Even some spices have gluten in them. What can be done to advise the industry? Better to not offer GF at all then to have food labled as GF only because of the content id the handling has contaminated it.